Category Archives: Education

“Open Design Cape Town Festival is a 12-day city-wide festival that celebrates the values and impact of design and innovation as key drivers of economic, environmental and social development. The Open Design Cape Town Festival is positioned as the leading showcase of how human-centred design can improve living conditions, build human capital and drive job creation. Through Open Design, the genius of innovative social design, service design, universal design and sustainable design has gained a firm place on the calendar of international design weeks.

Open Design Cape Town brings together all the design disciplines to remove the exclusive stigma associated with design. The programme is designed to educate and empower youth, develop human capital, nurture leaders and activate responsive citizens.”

Written by Jon Kolko from AC4D this book is available to read for free online or can by purchased. Inspirational, with a clear focus and easy to read style. As described by the authors:

This book was started with the intent of changing design and social entrepreneurship education. As these disciplines converge, it becomes evident that existing pedagogy doesn’t support either students or practicioners attempting to design for impact. This text is a reaction to that convergence, and will ideally be used by various students, educators, and practitioners…

The annual HELTASA conference kicked off today and I have to say the sessions I attended were excellent. HELTASA, the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa, is a professional association for educators and other significant role-players in the tertiary sector. The 2013 conference is themed

Higher Education in a shifting landscape: emergence, fragmentation and convergence

The role of technology, paradigm shifts in higher education and the relationship between higher and basic education were explored in sessions attended. One of the great things about conferences is the collecting a range of useful and exciting resources. Here are a few mentioned today – the presenter who mentioned them is indicated in brackets.

Oasis for Learning {http://oasis-for-learning.net} A great resource for research practice, research writing, writing inspiration and teaching and learning. (Professor Gina Wisker. Professor of Higher Education & Contemporary Literature, Head of Centre for Learning and Teaching)

NMC Horizon Report {http://www.nmc.org/publications/2013-horizon-report-higher-ed} Identifies and describes new technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in higher education. (Professor Grainne Conole, Professor of Learning Innovation, Director of Institute of Learning Innovation)